with David Blaska

Blaska takes on John Doe, Scott Walker, Hillary: The Movie, and Gerry Mander as the Beaver

(page 1 of 2)

What are we to make of the screaming headlines over political campaigning in Scott Walker’s office while he was Milwaukee county executive?

Mike Tate and the Democratic echo machine will try to spin it as Watergate on the Lake. Walker partisans will say “nothing to see here.”

I am somewhere in between. My standard is this: If you play the game, you play by the rules. I don’t understand why the batter gets to run to first base if the catcher drops the third strike, but rules are rules. That said, someone is committing politics in a political office? Please tell me Barack Obama never did that.

Several of Walker’s aides did get caught up in the probe, but not the big kahuna himself. The question is what did he know and when did he know it? The evidence presented by the Wisconsin State Journal this morning is thin. Walker calls a staff member at home to console her after she is forced to quit over campaigning on company time. Walker then issues a memo to his staff: don’t be doing what she did. (As for the two aides stealing from the military veterans — Walker himself called the cops on them. But god! Russell and Kavanaugh are sleazy-looking!)

Still, the buck stops at the big guy’s desk.

I quote here one Charlie Sykes, who does a little radio in Milwaukee as part of the Great Conservative Conspiracy.

“As the media and partisan operatives sift through 27,000 pages of emails from that ‘secret’ probe, we find volumes of old news, office gossip, political chatter, and unproved allegations. Prosecutors were in possession of these communications for more than three years. If there was any smoking gun contained within the emails, they would have used it against Walker long ago. There isn’t. So they didn’t.” You can read more here (pay wall).

Here is Wisconsin Reporter:

On a day when news headlines nationwide screamed of Gov. Scott Walker’s “apparent” knowledge of illegal campaigning going on in his office when he was Milwaukee County executive, the judge of the nearly three year “secret” investigation into Walker’s former aides and associates summed up the meat of the matter.

“The John Doe is closed and the results of the John Doe speak for themselves in terms of who has allegedly committed a crime, who has been charged with a crime and who has been convicted of a crime,” former appeals Court Judge Neal Nettesheim told Wisconsin Reporter Wednesday.

Among those emails were some borderline, politically incorrect jabs — none from the boss himself. If you hear any outrage from our liberal acquaintances (for they ARE our acquaintances), issue this two-word response: Graeme Zielinski.

Hillary: The Movie must go dark

Jay Heck of Common Cause very generously put the director of the Blaska Policy Werkes up at the table Monday night at Edgewood College to debate him (pictured at center of the table) and Sens. Dale Schultz and Fred Risser (at right) on the subject of good government. I guess I took the “opposed” side. Scott Milfred of the Wisconsin State Journal (far right) moderated. Seated next to me at far left are Edgewood poly sci prof Steven Davis and League of Women Voters Exec Director Andrea Kaminski.

“Thanks for coming …. You helped make the event more interesting,” Jay emailed the next day. (Your Squire also does retirement parties.) “I share your view that political conflict is good, if civil. Different views are good. And healthy. It’s good to be challenged.”

Something that occurs all too rarely in Madison, outside the State Capitol itself.

We drew an audience of 60 despite another Global Climate Change night in Madison. Except for your Humble Squire, the room was unanimous that our democracy is threatened by a literal reading of the First Amendment. Some people just have too much political speech, and it’s up to government bureaucrats to ration, regulate, restrict, and redistribute that speech. Except for your lone contrarian, the assemblage was convinced that the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United must be overturned. To do so would allow the government to ban Hillary: The Movie, the communication at issue in the case, as well as any book, so long as it was political, that was issued by a corporation (as are all but self-published books) within 60 days of a general election.

Dear Leader Comrade Barack Obama says that "If you like your free speech, you can keep your free speech." So you can do the math from here, considering what happened to your insurance plan, primary care doctor, pharmacy plan, etc etc. Rest in peace, First Amendment.(1776-2014)

In a related story, the glorious Progressive Obama regime has announced plans to have the FCC spy on news outlets by proposing a study to "identify and understand the critical information needs of the American public, with special emphasis on vulnerable-disadvantaged populations."

Rumor has it that Comrade John Nichols already has a cubicle cleaned out and ready for occupancy by any correct-speak federal bureaucrats assigned to his newsroom by the Ministry of Propaganda.

Feb 20, 2014 01:58 pm

Posted by
coolkevs

sad you were the only contrarian on a college campus - so much for the wellspring of ideas.but only 60 people showing up belies how important these issues are to the general populace despite the WSJ and other rags beating on them like crazy

Feb 20, 2014 02:30 pm

Posted by
Anonymous

Truly David, the "top guy" MUST have known about what his underlings were doing...goes without saying that that MUST be the absolute correct conclusion in situations like this. I'm speaking of the Great One Mr. Obama, of course.

Feb 20, 2014 05:00 pm

Posted by
Anonymous

When liberals started cheering the First Amendment being dismantled, they ceased being Americans at that point. They became enemies of this great nation and should be afforded every consideration as such.

Feb 20, 2014 07:55 pm

Posted by
Anonymous

http://tinyurl.com/l8rlts6

Link to the Obama regime's takeover of America's newsrooms. Who would have guessed it had an affirmative action component?

Feb 20, 2014 10:53 pm

Posted by
Anonymous

The left will keep their Email Golden Calf alive for as long as Gov. Walker is in office. It IS their new god to which they will devote their lives. The Golden Calf itself is already on life support, its life having been sucked out by DA Chisholm. But Nichols and company will keep putting quarters in the meter as long as it doesn't start to rot. I think by May it will have died and they will have to dream up a new attack against the governor.

And thanks for taking on the left. No one has ever accused the leftists of having an open mind, and once again you proved that they don't.

Feb 21, 2014 06:11 am

Posted by
Anonymous

Dave, thanks for not playing the "nothing to see here" game your fellow con-bloggerz are playing. It's embarrassing. The reason why this is news is because we so rarely get a behind-the-scenes look at the dismal and saddening business of politics. It's fascinating to us in the same way that hyenas picking over a dead rhino carcass is fascinating. But it's embarrassing for anyone who is paid to produce media to insist that those looking through these documents are wasting their time. They're doing exactly the same thing.

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About This Blog

Raised on a farm near Sun Prairie, David Blaska is a recovering liberal who spent 18 years in daily newspapers, including 12 at The Capital Times in Madison as a reporter and editor. He served Gov. Tommy Thompson as acting press secretary in 1998 and is a veteran and survivor of 19 years in state government. He served 12 years on the Dane County Board of Supervisors. From December 2007 to November 2011 he wrote the consistently popular "Blaska's Blog" for Isthmus online's "The Daily Page" until, he says, the intolerant liberals ran him off. He blogs from Madison.